


chewing on the strings

by rhysiana



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Break Up/Make Up, I'm not gonna lie there's some angst, M/M, Sharing Clothes, That damn hoodie, but also lots of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 22:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11701227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhysiana/pseuds/rhysiana
Summary: “I hate this sweatshirt,” Stiles breathed, millimeters from Derek’s lips.“Yeah? Why’s that?” Derek murmured.“It’s been torturing me since the first day I saw you again. It’s not playing fair. Hoodies are supposed to be my thing.”***In which Stiles and Derek fall together, break apart, and come back together again. The hoodie is symbolic.





	chewing on the strings

**Author's Note:**

> I heard Hey Violet's "Hoodie" while driving home, and couldn't NOT turn it into a Sterek break up/make up story. I swear this is not my fault.
> 
> Edit: I commissioned art for this from @tsumi-noaru! (It's fighting me on being embedded here right now, but!) [It is in rebloggable format here!](https://rhysiana.tumblr.com/post/172038165478/behold-this-amazing-art-by-tsumi-noaru)

 

> _I used to put my hand in your pockets (holding on)_  
>  _The smell of your cologne is still on it (but you’re still gone)_  
>  _Slip it on over my shoulders_  
>  _Someone I’ll never get over_  
>  _Makes me feel a little bit closer to you_
> 
> _I can’t keep your love_  
>  _I can’t keep your kiss_  
>  _Gave you everything and all I got was this_
> 
> _I’m still rocking your hoodie_  
>  _And chewing on the strings_  
>  _It makes me think about you_  
>  _So I wear it when I sleep_
> 
> -Hey Violet, “Hoodie”

*******

**Winter break, freshman year**

Stiles knocked on the door of the townhouse and then looked around as he waited, bouncing on his toes and grinning at how _normal_ it all looked.

“Dude,” he said as he heard the bolt get thrown back and the doorknob start to turn, “I heard you were back in town. When did you go all suburban on us?” And boy was he glad his mouth was still capable of carrying on without direction from his brain, because he was not at all prepared for a Derek Hale who answered his door in track pants and a hoodie only half zipped up, no shirt underneath. Stiles appeared to have interrupted him mid-workout, judging by his sweaty hair, and honestly, how dare the guy still be so good-looking, now with the addition of apparently being on speaking terms with the concepts of _relaxation_ and _comfort_?

_Fuck me_ , he thankfully did not say out loud, although the phrase was certainly applicable. In multiple ways. _Dammit_. He hadn’t seen the guy in over a year and a half; he was supposed to be over this.

Derek blinked at him, and then a slow smile spread across his face. “Stiles.” He stood back and held the door wider. “Come in. Home on break, I take it?”

“Yeah,” Stiles answered absently, neck already craning to take in as much of Derek’s new place as he could. The guy had furniture now! And whole walls! “All my exams fell early in the week, so I got in yesterday. But Scott’s not back yet, and my dad is working, so I figured I’d see if the rumors of your return were true. Oh my god, you actually have a TV!”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, I’ve finally joined civilization, I get it.” He moved toward the kitchen. “You want something to drink?”

Which Stiles interpreted as an invitation to stay and threw himself down on Derek’s completely bloodstain-free couch. “Holy shit, this is comfortable.”

“Make yourself at home,” Derek said drily, holding a bottle of… was that actually locally brewed root beer? over Stiles until he pushed himself back upright.

“Derek,” Stiles said seriously. “Derek. You have to tell me. Are you a hipster now? Have you become a foodie?”

Derek settled back into the cushions at the other end of the couch and took a drink from his own bottle. “Shut up, it’s good.” He rolled his head to the side to raise a pointed eyebrow at Stiles. “You act like you never expected to see me live like I wasn’t on the run.”

Stiles let his protective joking demeanor slip a little and reached out to nudge Derek with his foot. “Naw, man, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m happy for you.” He swallowed down something that felt very much like his heart as his gaze landed on a framed picture of Derek and Laura actually sitting out in plain sight. “You deserve nice things, you know? You always have.”

This won Stiles another pleased smile, and that was it, he was addicted to that look. He wanted to see it again and again. He wondered how many times he could do it before his break was over.

God, he was doomed.

Derek cleared his throat and looked away, taking another sip. “So how’s college?”

They talked the entire rest of the afternoon, right up until Stiles remembered he’d told his dad he’d make dinner and had to run out the door.

He was back the next day.

And the day after that.

And the day after _that_ , Derek found a reason to come by his house instead.

It just became a thing. “I guess we had a lot to catch up on, huh?” Stiles said one day. “Guess so,” Derek replied, seeming totally unbothered by that idea, and then proceeded to text Stiles random facts from the documentary he ended up watching later that night, like there was no one else he wanted to share inconsequential thoughts with. It was frankly starting to screw with Stiles’ head.

It was undoubtedly due to his unbalanced condition that he whimpered audibly when Derek answered his door the next day in that damn mostly-unzipped hoodie again. He felt himself flush with embarrassment until he suddenly registered the way Derek was staring at his lips as he licked them nervously, and then he was reaching out and wrapping the hoodie strings around his fingers to tug Derek in. He bracketed Stiles neatly against the wall and let himself be reeled in.

“I hate this sweatshirt,” Stiles breathed, millimeters from Derek’s lips.

“Yeah? Why’s that?” Derek murmured.

“It’s been torturing me since the first day I saw you again. It’s not playing fair. Hoodies are supposed to be my thing.”

Derek just gave him a slow smile from under hooded eyes and whispered, “Who said I wanted to play fair?” just before he kissed him.

Stiles was grateful for the wall at his back, and subsequently grew even more appreciative of how comfortable Derek’s new couch was.

He stole the hoodie before he had to go back to school.

***

It didn’t last, of course. Nothing good in Stiles’ life ever did.

“Derek, don’t be stupid! I’m not missing out on college life because I’m dating you!”

“You spent your whole spring break hanging out with me, and now you’re sitting in your dorm room talking to me on a Friday night.”

“So? Why do you have such a hang-up about my supposedly ideal college experience? I was like this before we ever got together.”

“You deserve someone who’s actually there. You… you deserve nice things.”

“I thought that’s what _you_ were.”

“…Bye, Stiles.”

Stiles threw his phone across the room, pulled the hoodie up over his head, and slept for eighteen hours straight.

***

**Spring break, two years later**

“Stiles?”

Stiles froze in the middle of highlighting an article and looked up from the table he’d taken over in the back corner of the coffee shop, hoodie string dangling from his mouth.

_No_. Derek couldn’t be here. Stiles had stayed on campus to work on his thesis, but the eerie silence of his empty dorm had finally driven him out. He was so deep in a research spiral that he’d barely had the presence of mind to put on jeans instead of pajama pants, and he was definitely still wearing the t-shirt and hoodie he’d gone to bed in.

His fingers clenched instinctively around the cuff of the sweatshirt, worrying the frayed edge.

Derek’s sweatshirt.

_Shit_.

He let the string fall from his mouth and cleared his throat. “Derek. Hey.”

Derek stood by the table, a cup of coffee in his hand, looking… nervous? “Hey.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I was, um, here for a conference.”

Huh. Stiles hadn’t even known he’d had a job. The thought made him distinctly uncomfortable. He sat back with a sigh, capped his highlighter, and shove the other chair away from the table with his toe. “Sit, if you want.”

Derek sat.

Stiles pulled the hoodie’s sleeves down over his hands and crossed his arms. It was stupid to be seeking comfort when confronting Derek from Derek’s own sweatshirt, but the past two years had ingrained the habit.

Derek noticed, of course. “Is that… is that mine?”

Stiles shrugged, embarrassed and defensive about it. “You want it back?”

“No, I… Stiles, I want _you_ back.”

Stiles’ breath caught in his throat and he tried to let it back out slowly, evenly. “You shouldn’t have let me go in the first place.”

Derek looked down at his coffee, fidgeting with the cardboard sleeve for a second before he looked back up, pained but nakedly honest. “I know, believe me.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes. “Yeah? And were you planning to share that revelation with the class, or were you just going to keep it to yourself for another few years?”

“I should have called, I just kept… thinking I’d run into you. Get to see you, tell you in person.”

Now it was Stiles’ turn to look away. “Yeah, well. I haven’t been home much. Been real busy with school, internships, you know.” He gestured at all the books and papers on the table. “Gotta finish that senior thesis.”

Derek’s brow furrowed. “Senior? But this is just your third year.”

“Didn’t know you were keeping track, big guy.”

Derek frowned.

Stiles waved a hand tiredly. “Sorry, sorry. No, it’s just that I had a bunch of AP credits coming in, and I’ve been taking an overload schedule anyway the past two years, so I figured why not?”

He watched as Derek reconsidered the pile of materials on the table, the dark circles Stiles knew were practically a permanent feature around his eyes now, the hoodie. “Stiles.”

Stiles shrugged. “You weren’t there. I dealt. And there are worse things than graduating early.”

Carefully, Derek extended one hand, left it palm up on top of some of Stiles’ papers. “Can I be here now?”

Slowly, Stiles reached out to touch Derek’s fingers, the tips of his own just visible beyond the hoodie’s cuff. “That depends. Are you really in this time?”

“Yeah. I am.”

Stiles let his fingers wrap around Derek’s. “Okay. Help me carry all this stuff back to my dorm?”

“Sure.”

The walk back to Stiles’ dorm felt less awkward than it probably should have, and as soon as they got into the room, Derek set his armful of books down on Stiles’ cluttered desk, turned, and tugged Stiles in by the strings of the hoodie.

“I’ve really missed this,” Derek whispered.

“What, the hoodie?”

Derek leaned in. “I mean, it is a really nice hoodie.”

They agreed to joint ownership after that.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am on the [tumblr](https://rhysiana.tumblr.com).


End file.
